1. Technical Field
Aspects of the present invention relates to a technology for network being connected with network devices having an encrypted communication function.
2. Related Art
Generally, as data is transferred in plaintext via a network, a content of the data may be viewed by malicious users. Therefore, recently, such unauthorized viewing by malicious users can be prevented by using a device capable of encrypted communication so that data with high secrecy can be securely transferred within the network.
Conventionally, a method to create and display a list of network devices provided in a network, whereby a determination can be made as to whether a network addresses is assigned each of the devices, has been developed, In the method, the network devices connected to the network are retrieved in accordance with a specific network protocol wherein network devices having network addresses assigned and network devices without network addresses are uniformly communicable. Further, the network devices with the network addresses assigned are selectively retrieved by using data to be replied solely by the network devices having the network addresses assigned. Thereafter, a list of devices indicating as to whether the network addresses are assigned to the network devices is displayed based on the result of the retrieval. Such a method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication NO. 2004-048649.
However, in the conventional method, while devices in the network require to be made various operational setting for the encrypted communication, there have not been provided users with ways to know as to whether the operational setting had been made for each network device in the network collectively. Therefore, as a number of network devices grows it has been difficult for the users to identify for which network device the operational setting for the encrypted communication should be made.